VOORHEES, N.J. -- The Flyers might have a fresh face back in the lineup tonight when the New York Islanders pay a visit.

Hoping for a comeback charge into Wells Fargo Center is Danny Briere, who said Monday that he continues to feel "better and better" every day, has been participating in contact drills on the ice and is cautiously optimistic about returning to action against the Isles.

"It's a possibility, yeah," Briere said. "I haven't ruled it out, but there's a few things we need to talk about first."

Advertisement

Those discussions, Briere said, would be with Flyers doctor Gary Dorshimer and therapist Jim McCrossin, both of whom will have a major say in the decision of whether or not Briere's ready to play after missing six games with a concussion.

"I've been working out and doing more every day and having a little more contact," Briere said. "So at this point, yeah, it looks good. ... All I have right now is it definitely feels better and better."

Briere said it was the first time he remembered suffering a concussion that caused symptoms.

"I felt like I was in a bubble the first week," he said, referring to how he felt after suffering the injury in New Jersey Jan. 21. "You feel like you're in your own world."

Eventually, however, the fog lifted and Briere started to get serious in his recovery. As of Monday afternoon, he indicated a clearance from the doctor was all that was between him and a return to the ice to help a Flyers team that just spent a weekend looking very out of step with the Devils and Rangers.

"A big part of it is trying to be honest with yourself and with doctors; let them know exactly how you feel so that you're not putting yourself in a bad position," said Briere, who passed his baseline tests early last week. "I don't know, I remember when I was 21 years old and I had (a concussion). ... They kept me off the ice for a week but I didn't have symptoms. And it's so long ago. I'm getting older.

"One thing I can tell you is I'm not worried about coming back," Briere added. "I'm not changing my game or anything like that, going into tough areas to score goals, I'm not planning on changing that."

Flyers coach Peter Laviolette was a little more restrained in discussing Briere's recovery, perhaps because Laviolette usually is low-key.

Especially after the weekend he just had to endure.

While enough time had passed since the 6-4 loss to the Devils Saturday that began with a six-deep deficit, Laviolette still was mulling a loss that seemed more painful, the 5-2 beating they suffered at Madison Square Garden Sunday.

"We have to be better with attention to detail of trying to prevent goals from going into our net," Laviolette said. "We're all accountable. It's my responsibility to make sure we're better defensively from a team point of view right down to the goaltender.

"There are things that we could have done better as a team defensively. We could have blocked more shots, we could have played with more desperation, we could have scored more goals, we could have defended better in our end, we could have gotten saves. There's nobody exempt from the loss (Sunday)."

How happy was Laviolette over that Rangers game?

"It leaves a pit in your stomach," he said. "But we've got a big game (tonight). We've got to get past (the weekend); the last time the Islanders were in here, they played a strong game and beat us in our building. So you've got to shift gears and focus on what we can do to be better."